Phase II of epidemic

Context: There is a need to manage the present Covid crisis in more scientific and systematic way rather traditional bureaucratic response.

Traditional Way of handling the epidemic

• Legal Measures available with the govt: Epidemic Disease Act of 1897 and National Disaster Management Act 2005. 

Problem with Traditional way 

• Draconian due to lopsided interpretation.

• No plan document available at national, state and local level. 

• Act should have induced scientific community to take more research activities, but concentrated power in the hand of generalist elite bureaucracy.

• Guidelines without scientific citation

• Poor planning and misplaced priorities with faulty methodology: 

• Containment was not possible looking at huge densities of population in urban area, migratory pattern of people. 

• Elimination is not possible without having robust vaccine.

Transition into Scientific and Systematic Management of crisis

• Uncover regional parameters of the diseases: Through careful documentation of the cases, their geographies, their socio-economic background, and their clinical response. 

• Logistic Level – Periodic assessment of hospital beds, ambulance service, public transport, and other basic amenities. Any shortfall can be met through support of community organizations.

• Dashboard of key parameters of preparedness enhance confidence and transparency in the system.

Way Forward

• Empirical and analytic foundation of systems of delivery, sharing the experiences will help in get out of this crisis faster. 

• Also, epidemic’s like Corona should be managed in more scientific way with collaboration between administration and scientists.